


Together

by gray_autumn_sky



Series: Underworld Fics [6]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-13 20:20:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15372552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gray_autumn_sky/pseuds/gray_autumn_sky
Summary: Post 5x10; Robin and Regina cuddle up together in with Baby Hood and finally give that precious little girl a name; all the while, they discuss their memories of Camelot and the off-screen discussion about Zelena’s role in the little girl’s life.





	Together

He’s in bed by the time she gets home; it’s late, and she feels a pang of guilt, wishing just for once she could focus her attention entirely on  _them_. In the weeks since his return from New York, after all the heartache and suffering of their separation, after everything that happened in Camelot, it’s been a whirlwind of chaos. They’ve stolen moments here and there, had fleeting conversations that deserved to be given more time, and done the best with what they’ve had, yet she still can’t help but feel guilty.

She smiles meekly as she enters, and when he looks up at her, his smile is wide and bright, so full of love. And she wonders how he does it—how his smile can ease her tension and make the rest of the world fade away and make her feel that, no matter what, everything will be okay.

Her own smile warms as she comes closer. Robin’s legs crossed beneath him and his infant daughter is laying on a pink and white gingham blanket—a gift from Mary-Margaret—her blue eyes look around the room in wonder; a book of baby names is folded down beside him—something she’d picked up at the library earlier that day.

“Hello. Hello, my sweet girl,” she coos, and from the corner of her eye she sees Robin smile once more. “Look at you—bright-eyed and awake after such a long, adventurous day.” Regina reaches out, rubbing the back of two fingers over the baby girl’s soft cheek, and her eyes slowly turn to Robin. “Did you make any progress on choosing a name?” He rolls his eyes and sighs, and Regina finds herself laughing softly. “I’ll take that as a no.”

“Naming things has never been my forte,” he explains. “Marian named Roland, and the last time I had to name something it was a stuffed rabbit my mother made for me.” He pauses and his eyes meet hers, “Do you know what I named it?” Regina shakes her head, smiling at the thought of Robin as a boy, tugging a stuffed rabbit behind him as he set off on woodland adventure. “I named it Rabbit. Because it was a rabbit.”

She bites her bottom lip in an effort to suppress her laugh, “How…original.” With another sigh, he nods and leans back into the pillows propping him up. He winces; and once more, she feels a pang of guilt, remembering Camelot. “Well, we can’t call her ‘Baby Hood’ forever.”

He blinks, “Roland thinks we should call her Nala.” He pauses and Regina chuckles. “From the  _Lion King_.”

“Ah, right. His new obsession,” Regina muses. She considers a quip about being grateful that he’s no longer enthralled by  _Cars_  and didn’t suggest calling his baby sister Lightening McQueen, who he’d once talked about endlessly; but there’s a soft yet sharp cry and both she and Robin turn to the baby. The little girl’s face is scrunched and her legs are kicking back and forth, and her cheeks turn rosy as another tiny cry escapes her. Instinctively, Regina leans forward, scooping up the baby and the blanket, and cradling her in the crook of her arm. For a few minutes her attention rests solely on the fussing baby—she rubs her hand against her stomach in a circular motion, as she murmurs sweet notions to her, telling her that she’s safe and loved and that there’s no need to cry. And, after a few minutes, the baby’s cries quiet and her little eye lids begin to flutter, until they finally sink shut.

“I think someone was feeling ignored,” Regina says in hushed voice, looking up to see Robin’s eyes smiling at her and she feels her heart warm as she remembers their conversation from the night before—she remembers how he placed the infant in her arms and how upon that first contact her heart immediately swelled with love, she remembers Robin’s teary smile—a smile that mirrored her own—as she admitted that she didn’t need to be this girl’s mother to love her, that the title she holds has no bearing on the relationship they’ll build—and she remembers how she vowed to protect her and together they’d hatched a plan to appease Zelena, toneutralize her threats, and ensure that the small girl who they’d only met just hours before but loved so dearly didn’t become collateral damage or a pawn in some evil plot. “It feels so good to hold her again,” Regina breathes, her eyes casting up to meet Robin’s.

Carefully, she edges her way back on the bed so that she’s sitting beside him against the pillows. “I know that feeling,” he says, slipping his arm around her shoulders. “When I came back from your office and Granny put her back in my arms—it was such a relief. I was so glad to hold her again, to see for myself that she was still okay—I never wanted to put her down. The whole time I was away from her, I couldn’t wait to get back. I was so worried that…”

When his voice trails off, Regina looks up and sees that his eyes have darkened and his jaw has tensed, and she knows exactly what he’s thinking. Reaching out, she places her hand on his arm, rubbing gently and reassuringly. “Zelena can’t hurt her.She’ll never be able to just take her or run away with her, and if she even  _tries_ …” Regina feels her anger bubbling deep within herself, but she pushes it away and takes a long, deep breath. “Well, with all the protections spells I cast, she’ll be blasted all the way back to Oz.”

At that, he smiles slightly. “Thank you, by the way.” He pauses, “I don’t know if I’ve said that yet, and if I have, I haven’t said it enough.”

“You don’t have to thank me for wanting to keep her safe.” She looks down at the child sleeping in her arms, silently hoping that they’re doing the right thing, that they’re doing what’s best for her. “It’s just…”

“It’s just what parents do,” he supplies, echoing their conversation from the night before.

Soon her thoughts begin to drift and she thinks about what it’ll be like watching this little girl grow up, what it’ll be like to have another child go through the sleepless nights and teething, first steps and first words, tantrums and the terrible twos, bath time and night-time cuddles—and this time, she thinks, how nice it will be to have someone to share it with. And once more her smile warms as she feels Robin’s head rest against hers. Reaching out he rubs his index finger against the baby’s tiny hand. Closing her eyes, she leans into the pillows and sighs contently, wishing that their lives could always feel like this—peaceful and serene, and so full of love. 

And then the pangs of guilt return, as she remembers how close she came to losing him. She remembers Percival’s story, she remembers how she felt her stomach twist and turn as he recounted a memory—a memory of which she had no recollection. For a brief moment, she’d chastised herself for her lack of memory; hating herself for the fact that the Percival’s painful, explicit memory was so generic to her. She thinks of the way Robin rushed forward and of the way her heart clenched when she saw the blood—first a small spot that quickly expanded as he dropped to the ground; though it happened in no more than a series of seconds, the scene played out for her in slow motion. She remembers how he gasped for hair and how his face contorted as his winced in pain. A lump forms in her throat as she remembers the way he looked at her—his eyes still so soft, so sorry, so scared; and she remembers, even in that moment, that his eyes were full of love. She remembers how defeated she felt when she couldn’t save him. Frantically, she’d begged and pleaded, too afraid to even imagine losing him, losing the life they’d built together, losing the love she’d waited a life time for—all because of her. She hadn’t blamed Percival for what happened; she blamed herself, and she wondered if there would ever be a day when her past didn’t haunt her, when her past would stop inflicting pain.

She turns her head into his shoulder, pangs of guilt stab at her stomach and warm tears brim in her eyes. His hand reaches up, stroking her hair as he presses his lips to her temple.

“Hey…” he whispers, ducking his head down to look at her. “What just happened?”

With teary eyes, she lifts her head, “I almost lost you.”

“What?”

“Camelot,” she says. “At the Ball…” She swallows the lump at the back of her throat and looks up at him, her eyes searching his. “Are you…okay? Does it still hurt?”

“I’m fine,” he assures her. “When the memory first came back to me, the pain was fairly intense. But it’s dulled now; it’s just barely an ache.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive,” he says in a firm, yet tender voice.

She offers a meek smile, as she successfully keeps her tears at bay; but the pangs of guilt continue and the smile quickly fades. “You almost died because of me.”

She knows they’ve been through this. The night he was stabbed, she stayed with him, holding his hand as a mixture of guilt and relief flooded her. He’d told her he loved her and if he had the chance, he’d do it all over again—that he’d always defend her honor; and he’d even joked that things would have ended very differently had he had a bow and arrow to shoot.

Yet it all feels so new, so unlike a memory.

“No,” he interjects, shaking his head. “Not because of you.” Leaning in he kisses her forehead, “You’ve let go of the past, you’ve paid for your sins; and, you’ve come so far, Regina.” For a moment, she thinks to tell him about the story Percival told her; but she’s already done that. With a smile, she blinks away her tears; and, once more, is grateful for his love. “You know,” he begins, “Those Camelot memories weren’t all bad.”

“No, they weren’t,” she agrees as her smile deepens.

“I seem to remember lots of moonlit walks in the woods,” he tells her with a grin.

“I remember those, too,” she tells him, again resting her head on his shoulder—remembering the stolen kisses and the way he held her hand, as they strolled slowly under the glittering night sky, talking as they went. They talked about everything on those nights, it seemed; they talked about the happy memories they’d made together, in spite of all the chaos; they talked about the year they spent together in the Enchanted Forest—how each of them had been too stubborn to admit their feelings, how they’d slowly and secretly fell in love; and they discussed their future—hopes, dreams and fears. They talked about Henry and Roland, and how parenthood had changed them; and they talked about the child that Zelena carried.

“I have something for you,” he says suddenly, looking at her for a moment as a slow smile tugs at the corners of his mouth. “I…I nearly forgot, and I only now remembered.”

Her brow furrows and she tilts her head, watching as he shifts off the bed and reaches for his satchel, rummaging thought it until he finds what he’s looking for. Regina leans forward, trying to see, but the object is closed in his palm.

“Do you want me to take her? I can put her in…”

“No,” Regina says quickly, as she smiles down at the sleeping infant. “She’s perfectly fine where she is.”

“I agree,” she hears him say; though she doesn’t look up, she knows that he’s smiling.

She feels the bed shift as he climbs back in beside her, and she slowly looks away from the girl to find Robin’s eyes watching her with an indescribable look—a look that contains so much emotion that, if she didn’t know better, she’d be worried.

“You know that I love you, right? That I love you as you are.”

“Of course I do.”

Opening his palm, he picks up a small, corked bottle and holds it up to her, offering a small, almost sheepish smile as he looks up at her, “Water from Lake Nostos.”

She feel her breath catch and her eye brows arch as she looks from the bottle in his palm to his eyes, “Wh-where did you get that? The lake dried up… years ago. The water’s gone.”

“There were a few bottles of it on a shelf in Merlin’s workshop,” he tells her with a shrug of the shoulders. “And what can I say? Once a thief, always a thief.”

Her eyes are fixed on the bottle and she suddenly can’t find her voice; all she can do is stare at the tiny bottle between his fingers, at the bottle that can undo one of her deepest regrets.

“I…I’m not saying I want you to use this or that I think you need to,” he begins. The sound of his voice breaks her from her trance and she looks up at him, her eyes finally meeting his. “It’s completely up to you. I just…sometimes I can’t help but think how unfair fate has been to you, how much harder you’ve had to work for what you have than others.” He pauses for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “So many of the choices you made in the past weren’t really your choices; they were made for you or you were manipulated into making them; and the people who influence you, they never had to pay the price—it was always you.”

For the second time that evening, she feels tears beginning to brim; and once more, she feels a mix of emotion swirling through her. And she wonders how he can look back at her darkest moment and see through the thick veil she cloaked herself in, see through the carefully crafted façade and see  _her_.

“And sometimes I think about the look on your face when you told me that you and I would never conceive a child together, and I think about the way you’d look sometimes when we’d talk about this baby, and…” He sighs, shaking his head, and she can see that he’s struggling with the words. “And there was so much pain and sadness there.”

She nods, remembering the night in New York; how news of Zelena’s pregnancy had hit her like a ton of bricks, knocked the air out of her and made her stomach churn, and she remembers how she’d struggled to keep her voice from cracking when she told him this tied him to Zelena in a way that they could never be. He hadn’t asked why that night, he didn’t ask what happened. He’d merely held her hand and told her that he loved her and that the connection between them couldn’t be any stronger.

She remembers one night in Camelot, the night they finally talked about the child Zelena was carrying and how Robin felt about becoming a father once again. That night, he’d held her hand as he always did, but they walked in near silence until he finally made his confession. He said it in a way that was almost apologetic, and she’d smiled sadly in return—and her sadness had been misconstrued. She wasn’t sad over the child existence or that he was happy that the child existed, but because he’d felt the need to keep it from her. In a soft voice, she’d told him that it came as no surprise to her that he’d want this child, that he’d love that this child; and she quietly admitted that if he felt any other way, he wouldn’t be the man that she loved.

And then, it was her turn to fall silent.

When she appeared in his bedchambers in a cloud of purple smoke, as she did every night, he was waiting. His eyes were gentle and he took her hand, and asked why she’d been so quiet. And then she told him—she told him about that night in the Enchanted Forest, how her mother had tried to fool her into believing that Nottingham was her true love, how the manipulation was all for a grandchild, a heir; she tells him how she’d mix the potion, all the while telling herself love only brought pain and that she was giving up on it; andall the while her mother admonished and belittled her. She told him how she drank it in spite and she tells him how her eyes had filled with tears and her heart had clenched as she swallowed the potion, the realization of what she’d done to herself setting just moments too late. In that moment, she truly believed that no one would ever love her, that she could never be enough.

She’d smiled then, and told him that on most days, this decision didn’t haunt her and she’d moved past it; she tells him that it didn’t stopped her from becoming a mother—she had Henry and now Roland, and she couldn’t love them any more than had she given birth to them. But then her eyes slowly, fell away from him and she quietly admitted that still, despite that, she wishes she hadn’t done it; and, in an even quieter voice asked if that were selfish.

He’d pulled her close and told her he loved her and that, for him, she would  _always_  be enough. He kissed her and told her that she was far from selfish. She knew that he meant it, yet still, she wasn’t sure that she believed it.

“I’m not giving this to you because I think you need to be fixed or because I think you’re broken,” he tells her, pulling her back into the moment. “And I’m not giving this to you because I think we need another child in our lives.” He pauses and she smiles, the weight of the baby sleeping in her arms suddenly something she’s aware of. “I’m giving this to you because…”

Robin sighs and she can see that he’s struggling with his words, struggling not to say the wrong thing; and for some reason, that makes her smile. No one has ever taken her feelings into consideration the way that he has.

“Because it’s a choice that you should make for yourself—not because you think you should or because it’s what someone else wants or because it’s a condition for love or…” His voice trails off and he grimaces, rubbing his hand across his forehead, “I’m not…saying what I want to say.”

“Well, you haven’t slept in something like 48 hours,” she tells him with a soft grin as she reached out and covers his hand with hers. “And I think you’re doing a fine job explaining yourself.”

“I just want the option to be there, if you want it,” he says finally. “I don’t want you to live with unnecessary regrets.”

Regina takes the small glass bottle from him and holds it up, tilting it into the light and watching as the water shift, and for a moment, she considers what another child might be like—one that’s solely theirs, one that doesn’t have to be shared, one that has his blue eyes and dimples and her silky dark hair. She think of Henry, and she thinks of Roland and the little girl she’s holding and how much she loves them—how her heart’s already expanded more than she ever thought it could, how loves them deeper than she ever knew possible. She thinks of the girl she was and the life she’d always dreamed she’d one day have, and then her thoughts shift to her future and the life she and Robin are building together.

She closes her hand around the glass bottle and looks up at Robin, ands he smiles, “Thank you,” she tells him, as she leans over and places the bottle on the night stand. “But you’re wrong about one thing,” she brings, grinning as she turns back to him. “It’s not a choice that I’ll make or an option for me—it’s a choice that we’ll make. Together.”

He grins back at her and nods, “A choice we’ll make together—I like that.”

The baby begins to stir, and once more, Regina finds herself brought back into the present. She bounces her arms gently, and rub her hand against the blanket covering the little girl’s legs and torso. Quickly, she settles back into her slumber. “Perhaps there’s something else we need to decide on first,” she tells him. “Do you want some help picking out a name?”

“I would  _love_  your help,” Robin replies quickly, his eyes filing with relief. “Like I said last night, in my mind, she’s yours just as much as she is mine. This shouldn’t be something just I decide.”

Regina grins, watching as Robin picks up the baby book and shifts himself closer. He slides his arm around her shoulders and she cuddles against him, as he opens the book. Together, they go through a few names before Regina’s eyes fall away from the pages and to little girl asleep in the crook of her arm. She listens as Robin reads the last of the E’s, sighing at  _Eugenia_  and making a crack about naming a baby, not a 94-year old.

“What about Maya?” Regina interjects, looking up at him curiously. “Do you like that?”

She watches as Robin mulls the name and looks down at the sleeping child. “Maya Mills-Locksley,” he murmurs, still considering. She feels her breath catch; they haven’t discussed the child’s last name and she smiles at the inclusion of her own name. “Maya…” he says again, in a soft voice as he smiles. “I  _do_  like that.”

“More than ‘Baby Hood’?” She teases.

He grins warmly at her, “Much more.”

She smiles back at him and feels her heart warm as she thinks of the family they’ve pieced together. She could have never predicted this, and for so long, she’d even been too afraid to dream about it. He presses his lips against her hair before resting his head atop hers, and reached down to stroke the hand of the baby who sleeps in arms; once more, she smiles. She doesn’t know what their future holds, but knowing they’ll face it together fills her with both hope and relief.


End file.
